“Randolph-Macon drew nourishment from the eastern part of Virginia, whose fortunes were sunk in Confederate currency and stock and whose agriculture and towns had been scenes of ferocious battles and sieges” (Scanlon 117).

Following the defeate of the Confederacy in the American Civil War, “perhaps as much as 84 percent of the school’s endowment” was lost, as it was invested in Confederate war bonds (Scanlon 118).